The Purloined Heart

I forced myself to think. There were a handful of sorcerers who’d removed their hearts and hidden them somewhere on the theory it would grant a kind of immortality, but it never ended well. A single cancellation spell could break the link, killing the sorcerer instantly. I’ve known a few sorcerers who were heartless—metaphorically speaking—but none would actually survive losing their heart. It could easily happen by accident. A sorcerer who walked into the wrong household might discover the connecting charm coming apart, sentencing him to death. If Lord Dragon had done that to Starlight…

My mind raced. He could hold that over her head for the rest of her life. No, he’d done worse. He’d woven his charms into her helpless heart, giving him complete control over her body. I feared he might also have control over her mind… or did he? He hadn’t made use of her undoubted fighting skill when he’d taken over. Could he? I didn’t know. It was easy to use blood to influence someone’s behavior, or to insert suggestions into their head, but to do that with a heart? I couldn’t see why not, yet he clearly hadn’t.

Unless he wants to be sadistic, I thought. A person as individualistic and independent as Starlight would hate the thought of being turned into a puppet, her entire body controlled by a man who wanted to use her and humiliate her. Even standing helplessly would be humiliating beyond words, unable to keep him from playing with her body as he pleased.As long as he has her heart, she’ll be at his mercy.

“I told her to recruit a sorcerer I could use,” Lord Dragon continued. “What did she offer you?”

I scowled at him. “Half the reward money for your captive. Or do you even have a captive?”

Lord Dragon giggled. It was a disconcerting sound. “She brought you to rescue herself. That was a damp squib, wasn’t it?”

He reached out and pinched Starlight’s breast. “As if I would ever let her go…”

I cursed under my breath as a trio of servants arrived, hauled me to my feet, and half dragged me down the corridor. Up close, I could feel the spells keeping them enslaved. They were profoundly unnatural, their mere presence making it hard to concentrate. And yet I had to.

Starlight had been ordered to find a magician, and she’d done so by recruiting one to save an innocent girl… to save herself. Had she hoped I could free her from the ghastly trap, or kill her to spare her from further torments?

If I’d paid more attention to her as we made our way into the mansion, I might’ve realized she was no longer in control of her body before it was too late. No wonder the defenses had been so ineffectual. Lord Dragon had been toying with us, probably watching through Starlight’s eyes. The pervert had probably been disappointed she’d hired me rather than seducing me. And then he’d lowered the boom.

Think, I told myself. I had no idea why Lord Dragon wanted a magician, but I was sure it wasn’t for anything good. Perhaps he intended to add me to his forest of magic sources, or even use my body in a ritual, or…

I didn’t want to know. There has to be a way out of this.

My knuckles ached. I’d hit her hard enough to make her nose bleed, and yet it hadn’t been enough to put her down. Any adventurer would have shrugged off the blow and kept coming, and in her case, she wasn’t even in control of her own body. I could see her blood on my skin, and that meant…

A thought ran through my mind. I could use the blood to link to her mind and… the thought cut off sharply as the servants toss tossed me into a cell. It wasn’t the worst cell I’d ever been in, but I couldn’t move. They left me lying on the floor as they walked away.

I gritted my teeth and pushed magic into the wood. It shivered against my skin and splintered. I grunted in pain as I pulled my hands free, then did the same to the bindings around my ankles. My blood mingled with hers, creating a link I could exploit if I had time. The cell was designed to make it almost impossible to use magic, but it was very difficult to suppress a blood link.

I forced my thoughts into the link, trying to reach out to her mind. There was no sense of her awareness, nothing that suggested she was awake inside her own body. I couldn’t tell whether he’d switched her off or buried her so deeply inside her mind that she had no awareness at all of the outside world. My thoughts kept moving, expanding further as I tried to see through her eyes. There were no spells barring my way, as far as I could tell, but I still couldn’t see through her eyes. It took me too long to realize her body was still linked to him through her heart.